The conventional way of making French fries, for example, for chain stores such as MacDonalds, Burger King and the like, is to distribute frozen raw, blanched or par- fried potato that have been presliced to the appropriate shape e.g. strips. The local restaurants and defrost these frozen French fries in the restaurant and deep fry them. Obviously, transportation and distribution of such frozen potatoes adds a significant cost in view of the required refrigeration both during transportation storing them on premises. The in restaurant refrigerated space required to maintain the chips frozen until they are to be used also contributes to the overhead.
Attempts have been made to provide slice raw potatoes or the like suitable for French frying and having a significant shelf life without requiring freezing has been an object of the industry for sometime. However, to Applicant's knowledge, no one has been successful in producing, for example, a dehydrated product of a quality that is acceptable to the restaurateurs. Thus, the practice of using frozen raw French fries is reasonably standard except in those instances where the fresh potatoes are peeled, sliced and cooked on the premises.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,073,952 issued Feb. 14, 1978 to Standing of the Pilsbury Company, describes a specific attempt to produce potatoes pieces suitable for making French fries. In this process the potatoes are peeled and sliced, blanched and then cooled to about 80.degree. F. or lower followed by drying under conditions of selected relative humidity in the hot air surrounding the raw pieces and using microwave energy to provide about 50-90% of the total drying energy input to reduce the moisture content to 12% or less.
This technique provides a reasonable dehydrated product. However, apparently, it has not been found to be satisfactory by those in the business and thus has not been adopted by those in the business.